Tao

Tao, ama secondo il Tao Ritieni il seme Duecentocinquanta milioni di spermatozoi In un solo orgasmo Un solo uomo può popolare la terra Tao © 1995 Franco Battiato & Manlio Sgalambro "Tao" - advice for men on their sexual practices from an argumentative, quasi-nihilist, self-taught Sicilian philosopher, delivered in a warped, very non-commercial "pop" song by Battiato.

Tao, love according to the Tao – retain the seed. Two hundred fifty million spermatozoa in a single orgasm – one single man can populate the earth. English translation © 2020 Dennis Criteser L'ombrella e la macchina da cucire was released in 1995. It was recorded at Battiato's home using only electronic instruments, and for him it was somewhat of a return to the musical experimentation that characterized his 1970s work. The lyrics were written by Manlio Sgalambro, the Sicilian philosopher who said that, for him, Hegel's The Phenomenology of Spirit sung like music in his ears. References to philosophy and literature abound; the title of the album is taken from a line by the French poet Isidore Ducasse: "Beautiful as a chance encounter between a sewing machine and an umbrella on an operating table." This line, according to Max Ernst, is the key to understanding surrealist poetry - "the search for beauty through the pairing of two seemingly irreconcilable realities." Battiato felt liberated by not having to write lyrics, and he was stimulated to explore and discover new musical realms by the different aesthetic that Sgalambro brought to wordsmithing, one that flows from a man in many ways his opposite. Sgalambro described it this way: "Spiritual, transcendent, ascetic the first [Battiato]. Materialist, fleeting, anti-poetic, even cynical, the second [Sgalambro]."

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